When the word ‘hawker’ comes to mind, most of us immediately picture our favourite uncle, towel around his neck, cooking up kuey teow on a smoky wok. Undoubtedly, hawker food is the soul of Malaysian food and cultural heritage. Yet many hawker stalls struggle with declining customer rates and low digital visibility. While large restaurants thrive on online platforms, small hawker businesses often rely on foot traffic and word of mouth, a tradition that is being lost across generations. We wanted to build a tool that helps hawkers share their personal stories, appeal to the younger generation and upscale. MakanMap is an application that improves connectivity between hawkers and the public, making digital marketing and connectivity accessible for all walks of life. For hawker owners, the platform helps them: Generate marketing materials and educational infographics about their dishes Provide business insights like peak selling times and top products Provide a chat function to communicate with other hawkers to exchange information about suppliers, ingredients etc. to collaborate and to reduce repetitiveness in food variations For the public, MakanMap allows users to: Discover nearby hawker stalls Read about the history behind dishes and stalls Leave ratings and reviews Engage with the app
By combining discovery, storytelling, and marketing tools, MakanMap helps small stalls stay visible in an increasingly digital world.
How we built it
We built MakanMap using a combination of AI tools and development platforms. Gemini AI Studio helped us experiment with AI features and generate an overview of the app. For the interface design, we used Nano Banana 2, leveraging data from Google Search to track consumer trends and Google Maps for stall locations. The backend and functionality were coded with Antigravity in Swift and HTML, while Gemini 3.0 was used to create the app icon.
Challenges we ran into
Initially, we planned to use Nano Banana 2 to generate promotional posters for hawkers. However, we ran into compatibility issues, Nano Banana wasn’t directly compatible with our app framework, which slowed down development. To resolve this, we implemented API key integration, allowing us to securely pull the data we needed without relying on direct platform compatibility. This experience taught us the importance of flexibility and problem-solving when working with multiple tools in a complex project. Additionally, we only realised that producing an app required payment after making our platform app-based, and had to change to a website last-minute.
What's next for MakanMap
In the future, MakanMap aims to expand with food delivery options by partnering with services like Grab and FoodPanda, to reach more customers opting to have food delivered instead.
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